The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow echoes with Orthodox songs and prayers.
It is full of believers on one of the great Orthodox holidays: Spirits.
Many came here to see the masterpiece on display. A 600-year-old Orthodox icon - one of the most precious in Russia - believed to have been painted by the medieval artist Andrei Rublev.
It is known as the Holy Trinity.
For a century this painting has been in the state museum, Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery.
Temperature and humidity controls, along with teams of restorers, helped to protect and preserve this work of art.
But the Kremlin recently ordered the icon to be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The head of the Church, Patriarch Kirill, was delighted.
"This icon is returning to the Church at a time when our homeland is facing enormous enemy forces," he told worshipers over the weekend.
"It is being returned so that we can ask God to help our country and pray for our Orthodox President Vladimir Putin, whose decision was to return the icon," said the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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The patriarch may have been satisfied, but the transfer of the icon caused controversy.
One of the most famous Russian art historians agreed to meet with me to explain why.
Lev Lifshitz was part of a group of experts who advised against moving the icon from the Tretyakov Gallery, warning that it could be damaged and endangered.
"This decision was someone's personal whim," explains Lifšić.
"The [Tretyakov Gallery] Restoration Council was categorically against this.
"While the icon was in the museum, with a team of restorers, it was like a person in intensive care. It is monitored day and night with state-of-the-art equipment.
"This is a political decision. Those who are in power here look to the heavens and hope for help from above."
Or, at the very least, the Church's help in maintaining public support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and for the Russian president.
Patriarch Kirill publicly supports what the Kremlin continues to call a "special military operation."
He previously claimed that all the sins of Russian soldiers will be "washed away".
Moreover, the Russian patriarch suggested that Putin's rule over Russia was ordained by God.
"God placed you in power so that you could perform a service of special importance and great responsibility for the fate of the country and the people entrusted to your care," Patriarch Kirill said last October.
In this sense, the return of the icon of the Holy Trinity could be interpreted as a reward to the Church for its faithfulness.
But that may only be part of the story.
"The church is a very important element of his personal ideology," believes Andrei Kolesnikov from the Carnegie Russia Center for Eurasia.
"Putin's inner circle, and Putin himself, have an ideology: it is clerical, anti-Western and imperialist. What is the basis of this ideology? Not Marxism-Leninism as in the previous period of Russian history, but religion.
"He is a religious man. But it is not about Christianity as such, with real Christian values, because cruelty - those are not Christian values. In that sense, Putin is a follower of a very specific kind of religion."
In front of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior, believers are waiting in line to see the icon of the Holy Trinity.
Some of them hope for miracles.
"It is difficult now with the special military operation," Valentina tells me and adds: "We are praying for victory."
"Every reasonable person hopes that the conflict will end soon," says Antonina and continues. "I think God will help."
In Russia, the Orthodox Church often describes the war in Ukraine as a "holy war".
To make the Russians believe that God is on their side.
And to forget that their country attacked Ukraine.
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